NJA's Bennett, Miller willing to accept Senatorial appointments
By Lynford Simpson, Staff Reporter

Bennett....not just about positions or titles. Miller...anything for the benefit of the people.

AT LEAST two of the leaders of the New Jamaica Alliance (NJA) are willing to accept Senatorial appointments regardless of who forms the Government after the October 16 parliamentary election, as long as they are not required to compromise their principles.

The two, Hyacinth Bennett, President of the National Democratic Movement (NDM), and the Rev. Al Miller, Chairman of the Jamaica Alliance for National Unity (JANU), were speaking yesterday at The Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices, downtown Kingston.

The NJA, a recently formed coalition of the NDM, JANU and the Republican Party of Jamaica, will contest the upcoming election in 32 of the 60 constituencies. An initiative of Rev. Miller, JANU advocates a Government of national unity and, according to Miller, will give up power once this is achieved.

While Rev. Miller, Pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle would accept the opportunity of a Senate appointment, Mrs. Bennett is more sceptical.

"I think it is well established that I've been offered positions," she said, adding that titles and so-called expansion of status do not entice her.

"I have taken a principled position and that is I would have to be assured beyond the shadow of a doubt that if I were to take Senatorship, whether it be in the PNP or JLP, that my NDM principles will not be compromised," she emphasised. She added that she would not be "sucked into" a position until it's "abundantly clear that real change has taken place".

Mrs. Bennett said she is firmly committed to the principles of the NDM, despite the fact its founding President Bruce Golding last week returned to the JLP which he had quit seven years earlier to form the NDM. She is unmoved by the seven-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that paved the way for Mr. Golding's return to the party he had openly criticised about its style of politics and unwillingness to embrace constitutional reform.

Said Mrs. Bennett: "I don't get excited by MoUs. To date there is no evidence on the political landscape that the adequate conversion has taken place in certain traditional political houses... of an internal commitment to change."

For his part, Rev. Miller is more open to an appointment to the Senate. "Anything that is going to make better for the people of this country to get a good deal we inna it thick thick because Jamaica needs to win over the narrow partisan approach," he declared. He said the country could not wait another 10 to 15 years as the crisis in the nation was immediate.

Even so, Mrs. Bennett is adamant that there will be "no vulgar setting aside of our (NDM) principles".

"I have an obligation and a responsibility to the National Democratic Movement that has chosen me as their leader," she said.